Launching all the way back in April of this year, Streets of New Capenna’s time in the spotlight is well and truly over. Outside of a few choice cards such as Raffine, Scheming Seer seeing play in Standard, the set is all but forgotten. After all, surely we’ve seen everything there is to see in Streets of New Capenna, right? Wrong. Despite launching almost eight months ago, Streets of New Capenna cards are still being found and are seriously expensive. Supposedly, these newly discovered ultra-rare missing MTG cards may even be worth upwards of $2000!
Gala Greeters
While we may know everything there is to know about the English version of Streets of New Capenna, that’s not the only one that exists. Like most MTG products, Streets of New Capenna was printed in various languages. These languages were: Chinese, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Typically, different language printings aren’t much to write home about, with only select cards being notable. For instance, Strixhaven’s Japanese Mystical Archive cards were particularly prized for their unique art.
Similarly, albeit to a lesser extent, Streets of New Capenna had its own region-exclusive promotion. Utilizing Gala Greeters, Wizards of the Coast created a Box Topper promotion featuring “unique art designed to suit each region’s golden age.” In theory, this was a novel and exciting way for Wizards to celebrate the many regions MTG is printed in. In reality, however, this promotion was marred by controversy, as one of the region-exclusive MTG cards went missing.
Unfortunately for MTG players, this issue was much larger than just one style of Gala Greeters’ going missing. The entire Russian printing for Streets of New Capenna had seemingly vanished into thin air, and no one knew why. An official reason from Wizards was never given as to why this product apparently never appeared. Obviously, players had their suspicions. For instance, the war in Ukraine starting anew in late February 2022 seemed like an obvious explanation for the problem. Whatever the reason for this product disappearing, the problem was out of players’ hands, and subsequently, little could be done.
Missing No More
For eight months, all hope has been lost about finding the Russian Streets of New Capenna MTG cards. Recently, however, some of the missing product has mysteriously appeared on the market, much to the delight of collectors. One such collector, u/keithf414, was all too proud to show off their discovery and purchase on Reddit. In their post, u/keithf414 told their story, explaining how, to the best of their knowledge, “2 boxes of Russian New Capenna have surfaced, 1 set box, 1 draft box. Both of the box toppers, as well as some singles, were sold on Cardmarket.”
“I was able to work out a deal and purchase all of the contents of the set box, including the box topper, empty box, and some empty packs,” u/keithf414 continued. “At this moment, all that is known is that 2 copies of this card exist, and the last one sold for €2,000.” In their post, u/keithf414 wasn’t looking to flip their unusual purchase and earn a quick €2,000 ($2,122). Instead, u/keithf414 merely claimed they “wanted to share that this card does exist in some form.”
Speculative Scarcity
Across the MagicTCG and MTGFinance subreddit, several players were quick to sing the praises of the uncovered Russian cards. Reddit user u/mtgloreseeker, for instance, commended u/keithf414 by stating, “this IS neat! A rare find, congratulations!” Meanwhile, other players, such as u/whatcubed, talked up the overall interest in this product. “There are collectors in various non-English and Global Collector FB groups who have been chasing this product ever since its announcement. Doubly so after it was announced that the Russian language version was going to be held back.”
While some MTG players were excited to learn that the Russian cards exist, others quickly dismissed their discovery. “This is exactly the kind of thing I’d be super wary to spend a lot of money on. Unknown scarcity,” u/chanster6-6-6 warned on the MTGFinance subreddit. Continuing, u/chanster6-6-6 stated this could be a situation where “somewhere is sitting on a pile and drip feeding it into the market. Stay well away. It’s unfortunate because I thought the Gala Greeters were a really neat concept for a collection.”
By their own admission, u/keithf414 knew they were taking a risk when they purchased the product. “As for the rest of the product, no one knows the whole story, so my purchase is a massive risk. […] I bought this card and box contents because, at this exact time, it is one of 2 that exist. Sure, more can be released tomorrow and I overpaid dramatically. On the other hand, this could be Summer Magic 2.0, and these will be the only RU cards from New Capenna to hit the market.”
Read More: Shocking Leaks Reveal Corrupted MTG Planeswalkers
